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Marinette watched with tired eyes as his head popped through the trap door. Of course he had been listening in. Of course her paranoia was not to blame when she started getting the feeling she was being overheard. And of course she was naive enough to believe her conversation had been private.
Because it obviously was not.
His ears were pressed flat against his head and there was a weak grin on his face.
“Ahaha… princess… what…”
“You’re lucky I’m too tired to throw something at you for that,” she announced plainly. For reasons unknown to her, he chuckled before allowing himself to sink completely from her trapdoor into her bedroom.
“A black cat with luck,” he mused aloud. Suddenly his reaction to her statement made sense. “That’s rich.”
“You have Ladybug,” she pointed out. “Ladybugs are lucky, aren’t they?”
“She brings the good luck and I bring the bad. It’s an all-out party when we’re together,” Chat announced, a grin on his face. The statement made her chuckle. If only you knew, kitty...
A moment passed where she simply looked at the catboy in her room. Without anything to pun on or distract him, he was getting lost in his thoughts.
And Marinette was getting lost in her own. And her own questions. When had she stopped envisioning a glamorous life filled with love and roses for eternity? When had romantic daydreams turned into visions of the future that contained warmth and video games and stupid puns? When had she grown comfortable, happy even, with the idea that her life may not be filled with all the things a little girl could dream of? When had she begun wishing for a life with someone she could talk to and understand?
When had it happened?
“Chat?”
Her friend made a slight noise. He was not so deep in thought to have not heard her, which was good.
“When you were a kid, what kind of ice cream did you like the best?”
“Princess?”
“Chat, it’s three in the freaking morning. If you think I’m going to be doing any sort of deep talking or thinking right now when we should both already be in bed, you’re sadly mistaken,” Marinette said. There was literally nothing else she could compute for the day. “Of course, I could always kick you out, you know. Actually encourage a semi-decent sleeping pattern...”
Her friend chuckled, a deep and rumbling sound that made her smile. It was a warm laugh.
“Vanilla,” he answered. “What about you? You strike me as a strawberry girl.”
“Wrong,” she returned, sticking out her tongue for good measure. “It used to be chocolate. I couldn’t get enough of it as a kid.”
She smirked as he laughed at that.
“I guess I shouldn’t be surpurrised. But what about now? Still hate strawberry?”
“No,” she said as they laughed quietly together. “Though I do prefer blueberry.”
“What a shame. I kind of like strawberry myself.”